Never Before in History

The founding principles on which the United States were established belong to the ongoing human quest for political and religious liberty. That quest has been the central theme of Western civilization. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, they were seeking religious freedom. When the American Revolution was fought, it was fought for political freedom. The American Revolution is inconceivable in the absence of the context of ideas, which have constituted Christianity, such as Martin Luther's 95 theses, John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, as well as the social theory from the Puritan Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution in every colony were imbued with the precepts of the Reformed faith.

The American Revolution might be said to have started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517. Martin Luther held one of the largest parts in the Reformation. The Protestant reformation provided the socio-political context in which the United States was established. When the pope expelled Luther from the Roman Catholic Church in 1521, a trial was set, in which Luther was to defend his religious beliefs. When Luther stood before the court and told the authorities that it was wrong for anyone to go against his or her conscience in religious matters, a seed was planted for a future society based on Liberty of Conscience. That society would emerge over the next three centuries and culminate in the founding of the United States. Luther's call for religious freedom unleashed the forces responsible for that new nation. Through the Protestant Reformation, liberty of conscience would become a fundamental principle of the American nation.

Luther believed that a man’s life is divided in to two spheres. One sphere deals with a person’s physical life in society as he or she interacts with other human beings and the world at large. This part a person’s life relates to God as creator. The other sphere deals with a person’s spiritual life as someone made in God’s image and needing redemption. This part of man’s life relates to redeemer, who through Christ brings salvation from sin. According to him, God governs both spheres differently. God governs one sphere though law of creation, the other through the law of redemption. Luther describes the creator/redeemer distinction this way, “God has ordained two governments: the spiritual, which by the Holy Spirit under Christ makes Christians pious people; and the secular, which restrains the unchristian and wicked so they are obliged to keep the peace outwardly.”

After Luther, the next major Protestant movement occurred in Geneva, Switzerland. Here a society of Christians, often called the Presbyterians, struggled to establish a community under the leadership of John Calvin (1509-64). Calvin shared many of Luther’s concerns about liberating Europe from church and state oppression. Calvin wrote a famous set of volumes called the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin’s Institutes exerted a tremendous amount of influence on the founders of the United States. Many of them acquired their worldview from the Bible in one hand and Calvin’s Institutes in the other. Calvin’s theology profoundly influenced John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison to name only a few. Calvin’s theology also had weighty impact on the key political thinkers who influenced America’s founders such as, Algeron Sydney, Samuel Rutherford, and John Locke. Through their political writings, Calvin’s ideas shaped the founder’s political views.

The final pages of Calvin’s Institutes were highly influential in America's birth. They addressed the limits of authority. The last paragraphs discuss whether in religious matters a person ought to obey one’s conscience or the dictates of royal authority. Citing Daniel’s outward disobedience of the king’s orders, Calvin implies that a...

...Gandhi completes his explanation of the first method of countering injustice, he goes on to the other method of countering injustice and explains, “One who resorts to it does not have to break another’s head; he may merely have his own head broken.” (Gandhi) He chooses to risk his life and sacrifice his life for the greater good, further displaying his traits as a leader. In doing so, he fulfills the meaning of the phrase, “leadership as a catalyst for change in society,” in all areas.
Hazare and Gandhi are just some of the few leaders who are able to demonstrate the meaning of this phrase. Leaders need to be a catalyst for change in order for society to progress. If Hazare and Gandhi had never stood up against the injustices they faced, Indian society would have remained oppressed and never would have advanced. This is the reason for the phrase, “leadership as a catalyst for change in society.” They go hand in hand with each other. From our newly developed knowledge of the phrase and the experiences of these two catalytic leaders, we can continue our lives by living by the means of being catalysts and progressing society as a whole. Over the years, many have arisen to become what is commonly known as, a leader. Traits of a leader vary from being dedicated and altruistic to having courage and making sacrifices. All of those who step up to be a leader have a certain goal that they are trying to achieve. However, not all are successful in...

...into equal living quarters. This movement is in my opinion the act that really set the tone for the evolution of equality.
The evolution towards equality was a long road in which almost all say took too much time to pave. In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act also known as the fair housing act. This act was what so many people had been waiting for it would finally give African Americans free rights. This act allowed blacks to endure the power of full citizenship, enabling them to be able to buy decent housing attend the same schools, busses, bathrooms and any other citizen ships that they had been denied. This evolution happened unfortunately very slowly as in 1865 slavery was abolished and it took over 100 years before their rights were fully liberated. This evolution took the help of many different genders, races, and people of different
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ages. The evolution process took the help of movements from girls the ages of 15 to more seasoned pioneers like Rosa Park. This evolution process led to arrests on what would be looked at today as innocent people as well as threats and bombings. Equality was not an easy step to take but through time and protests equality slowly happened. This process took the help of both white and blacks in their movements for equality.
This long process of equality has...

...civilizations and even today we find that cities near rivers are very advanced and urbanized which led to industrialization. Many of these civilizations see these rivers and have legends, traditions and even beliefs shape around them as well as other natural beauties such as Mount Kilimanjaro. These are two major examples of how geography affects human development and culture.
In conclusion, we can say that geography affects our climate and traiditons by changing the circumstances we have to live in and therefore the humans have to become accustomed to whatever the world throws their way. This can cause disasters sometimes however, we always move on and life keeps going forward. Ultimately, geography affects our lives in major ways that we might never understand or appreciate completely.
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...﻿Name: Andiswa Mlambo
Student no:48090239
Unique number: 844868
Assignment : 04
Question 1
The reform of Alexander11 [1855-1881] were meaningless and left tsarist Russia unchanged ; do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.
I agree that the reform of Alexander11 [1855-1881] were meaningless and left tsarist Russia unchanged. The disastrous state of affairs left by Nicholas I meant that change had to come to Russia. His son, Alexander II was responsible for introducing major changes to the social system and other important aspects of life in Russia. Because of this, the reign of Alexander II was one of the most important periods in Russian history. Many historians believe that if Alexander II had been prepared to grant moderate political concessions, along with his social, legal and military reforms, Russia might have gradually become a constitutional monarchy. But although Alexander did tackle the urgent problem of serfdom, his reforms did not go far enough and he too was determined to hang on to his autocratic power.
After the defeat in the Crimean War many Russians now realised that Russia's only hope for military survival lay with modernisation. This would mean industrialisation to supply the military, improvements to communications and the introduction of a railway system. Financial reforms were introduced to meet the needs of the government not of the private sector. In 1860 Alexander II established the State Bank to provide credit...

...was very worried about my name in the US because it has another meaning, I do not want people to make fun of my name when they pronoun it. But then, nothing happens, people in there do not care who am I, how I look or treat me in different ways. I realized in there has so many races of people who come from other countries and they treat each other equally. To be honest, I not really like Black African Americans much because I think they always annoy, but not because of that reason I treat them not equally or have bad attitude toward them!
This is the first time I had heard about Latino. It is really a new knowledge for me. Although I am very confused and did not understand all of thing about Latino, I still enjoy and interested in their history. According to the book “Harvest of Empire-Juan Gonzales,” it said: “…Latinos numbered a mere 9.1 million and represented just 4.5 percent of the population as recently as 1970.” (Juan Gonzalez, p.16) In my opinion, when Latino immigrates to the US with a huge amount, they all bring to the US a new culture, new race, new physical characteristic, etc. For example, the popular music in the US at that time was Latin music. “But now Latino migrant, the product of those old relationships, have invaded the North American garden, kitchen, and living room. We are overflowing its schools, its army, even its jails.” (Juan Gonalez, p.18) In another side, Latino also brings immigrant different skin color in the US and that made...

...that they could make it through anything, and they did.
Conflict Management & Collaboration
From the very beginning Shackleton did not throw around the fact that he was the leader and that what he said went. He was genuinely interested in everyone’s thoughts and ideas in regard to the challenge that they were about to set out on. After Endurance had set off, Shackleton still wasn’t aboard the ship and was later going to board. When the ship was docked in Buenos Aires, instead of immediately going on and dealing with all of the conflicts that arose in his absence, he stayed at a distance and observed the interactions of the crew and watched to see who needed to be weeded out before they officially started on their journey. It was said that one of the mistakes that he made on Nimrod was that he never fired anyone even though he should have. He wasn’t going to make that mistake this time. By the time they left Buenos Aires he had let go of four men and made arrangements for them to go back to England. Surprisingly, conflict management among the men he worked with was very little. He laid a foundation of structure, positivity, and equality that made everyone feel valued and important. The book mentions, “Shackleton rotated work assignments so that over time, each man worked alongside all the others, blurring division” (Morrell & Capparell, 2002). Because of this blurring of divisions of the men, they were a team and even though Shackleton...

...﻿ History Assignment: 3
Q.1) What were the main characteristics of the writings of the Nationalist School of Historiography?
Ans: The Nationalist School of historical writing contributed to the self- confidence, self-assertion and a certain national pride which enabled Indian people to struggle against colonialism especially in the face of denigration of India's past and the consequent inferiority complex promoted by colonial writers. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri and other historians also helped overcome the regional bias. In this respect, as in many others, nationalist historical writing in India became a major unifying factor as far as the literate Indians were concerned. Nationalist historiography flourished mainly in dealing with the ancient and medieval periods.
In the First Generation, the Indian historians began writing ancient Indian history. Most famous among them was R.G. Bhandarkar. The Indian historians did not have any new perspective on Indian history. They blindly followed the model set by the British historians who focussed on dynastic narratives or political history.
In the Second Generation, the Indian historians continued to write political and dynastic history, but the interpretations were based on the nationalist point of view. This period saw the growth of nationalism. In the 1920’s and the 1930’s the Second Generation felt the impact of the National Movement. Some of...